Photos of the plot

Couple of photos.

Top - showing our neighbours drive and our plot at the rear.

Bottom - Google earth pic showing our plot under those trees near our neighbour's swimming pools. The diagonal feature is a stream that we have just learnt is hopefully going to be covered by the plot next door so they can build on there. Good news for us.

To brick or not to brick

The back of the house upstairs was going to be concrete panelling because the downstairs wall wasn't directly underneath supporting the weight. However we have decided to stump up the extra cash and build in brick at the back depsite noone being able to see it. Concrete cladding at the back is just not going to be a good look. We have also change the window size from those think 60cm high ones, to full height, hoping that the neighbours don't complain about us overlooking their plot.

The floorplan

We made a few changes to the basic plan, extending the back wall out in a line to give more space downstairs, adding a bath to the ensuite, and enclosing the rumpus as a 5th bedroom. We also added an understairs cupboard (you can't have enough storage). We are having wall dividers inbetween the showers and baths so that the bath doesn't butt up against the glass shower screen.

We don't have gas on site so we are having a gas top with bottles out back, and solar power to heat the water.

In order to allow for the higher quality finish at Wisdom. We had to make savings on the bathrooms which are not fully tiled, and the doors which will be standard flush panel, but on the other hand we get alot of inclusions we weren't expecting.

At the moment we just have one issue to sort out, that the upper floor at the back in in concrete panelling not brick because there is no brick supporting wall underneath - presumably because we extended the ground floor out from under it.

Colour Appointment with Wisdom homes

We chose our colours today. The choices were basically majority exterior because the interior is a package, which whilst it can be altered is fantastic anyway so we only made a few choices.
Anita the colour consultant / CSO was fantastic in helping us make our ideas a reality.
I'll update the blog on the exact colours later as we colour matched good old dulux against the Taubmans used by Wisdom and we whizzed through everything with two kids in tow. Wisdom has all the items we would have previosuly upgraded to as standard, which whilst it makes the base price more, it makes it very clear what the end build cost is going to be and you get designer style fittings for your budget.

We chose :
exterior paint
brick (Boral or Austral)
windows (Trend)
fascia, guttering
poly kitchen (very reasonable upgrade package - choice of about 10)
Caesarstone (any the basic range)
Glass splashback (kitchen package, 10 colours, with an upgrade to Starfire range)
carpet (50% wool blend)
concrete driveway
Vanity door and benchtops
garage and front door.


Anita advises on all of these just in case you're colour blind. We got excited about our build again for the first time in ages... and signed the contract.. wahey.

Just a comment on Wisdom, I'm glad that we didn't have to pick loads of different fittings. We could have asked for other things and changed this that and the other , but Wisdom has really modern fittings, for example the vanities have drawers already, the sinks are square, the taps are mixers, the shower screen is semi frameless, shower drains straight to floor, the kitchen package includes a funky rangehood etc etc. The whole thing involves no visits to plumbing merchants, no endless browsing of catalogues, because we already knew that the internal package suited us.

Esprit Facade

Plans being drafted

So we told our previous builder that we wouldn't be building with them two weeks ago and have heard nothing since. They kept our deposit of course, but that was expected.

In the meantime Domenic at Wisdom homes has been nothing short of fantastic in making things happen to get us back into council.

We're currently waiting on our new plans being drafted. Can't wait to get on with the build!

Wisdom Homes - changing builder

News!

Last week we paid our deposit to Wisdom homes to tender for our build. We decided we wanted a more contemporary facade and Wisdom also included really good packages that we were coming to realise all add up if you don't get the inclusions you want in your basic package.

In the kitchen package we're getting polyurethane kitchen ,20mm caesarstone,dishwasher, for 2k. The sink is a Caroma Liano and pin mixer which we were going to upgrade to in anycase.

The houses are on a par cost wise too - not base price though but if we break down the real cost of inclusions, with the added attraction that Wisdom offer carpeting and tiling allowances, and stencilled driveway.

This is one of their facades, and probably the one we'll go for. They have even more trendy ones but we're still on a bit of a budget.

What's interesting is that one of the questions I posted on the forum about what people look for in a house - is that kerb appeal - how good it looks from the outside is THE most important factor, with the inside fittings being just a confirmation of what the buyer already thinks. So this will mean we need to pay attention to landscaping when its finished.